He was born in 1921 in Baku,
Soviet Azerbaijan; but in truth, as creator of the concept of
"Fuzzy Logic", Lotfi Zadeh belongs to a world where
there are no boundaries limited to time or place. He really is
best characterized as an internationalist. He's quick to shrug
off nationalism, insisting there are much deeper issues in life.
"The question really isn't whether I'm American, Russian,
Iranian, Azerbaijani, or anything else," he'll tell you.
"I've been shaped by all these people and cultures and I
feel quite comfortable among all of them."

It's a vivid example of how in real life Zadeh shuns abrupt absolute
categories that don't take into account life's complexities.
It's the same kind of thinking that characterizes Fuzzy Logic,
an unorthodox theory which he invented which is impacting computer
technology.

Born of an Azerbaijani father on assignment as a journalist from
Iran, and a Russian mother who was a physician, Zadeh enjoyed
a privileged life those early years of his life in Baku. But
at the age of ten, when Stalin introduced collectivization of
farms throughout the Soviet Union, widespread famine followed,
and the Zadeh family moved back to his father's homeland. There
he continued his education in English in a private Presbyterian
school in Tehran. After high school, he sat for the national
university exams and placed second in the entire country. In
1942, he was graduated from the University of Tehran in electrical
engineering.

During World War II, he moved to the US and took a Master's degree
from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1946 and
a Ph.D. from Columbia (New York) in 1949, where he began teaching
systems theory. Since 1959, Zadeh has taught at Berkeley, first
in the Electrical Engineering (EE) Department where he became
Chair in 1963, and later in the Computer Science Division (EECS).

Retirement?Since 1991, he's been
officially "retired" though it's hard to imagine how
he could keep a busier schedule. He still continues to go to
his office on campus everyday when in town; but conferences and
consultations, often abroad, keep him away, on average, a few
days each week. He generally takes the "red-eye" flights
to the East Coast, preferring to travel all night because his
schedule is too tight to spend much time hanging around in airports
and hotels.

Lotfi Zadeh, in person, is a lean, quiet, unpretentious, unassuming
sort of man. He's often described as extremely gracious - a "gentleman"
in the European sense of the word - even by those who don't agree
with him. He's methodical, given to details, a "pencil person"
(preferring the eraser's tentativeness over pen). During his
leisure, he's extremely fond of photography though he used to
have more time for it in years past than now. Black and white
portraiture (with its fine nuances of grays, of course) is his
favorite. He has photographed quite a few famous people himself,
including Presidents Truman and Nixon.
His original paper on Fuzzy Logic published in 1965 encountered
skepticism and, in his words, occasional, downright hostility.
Nearly thirty years later, the controversy surrounding Fuzzy
Logic is still with us, though not to the same extent. The numerous
applications of Fuzzy, especially in Japan, are too visible to
be denied.

He's gifted with a mind that provides the flexibility to address
learned scientists as well as the most unindoctrinated novice
by describing scientific principles in concrete tangible examples
from everyday life. He tries to best to be accessible to both
groups.

Although Fuzzy logic has a much longer reach than traditional
logical systems, Zadeh is the first to admit that it is not a
panacea. "There are and will be many tasks which humans
can perform with ease and which lie beyond the capability of
any computer, any machine and any logical system that we can
conceive of today."

How Big is "Fuzzy"?Who knows? Zadeh is
too busy pushing forward to keep up with how far the field has
expanded. His office in the newly constructed Computer Science
Building at Berkeley is stacked floor to ceiling with reprints
of articles related to Fuzzy. He believes that people are studying
this field in every country which offers advanced education.
Twelve journals are now published which include the word "Fuzzy"
in their title. An estimated 15,000 articles have been published,
although it's hard to be exact as some appear in obscure journals
in remote parts of the world.

An estimated 3,000 patents have been applied for and 1,000 granted.
The Japanese, with 2,000 scientists involved in Fuzzy Logic,
have been very quick to incorporate Fuzzy Logic in the design
of consumer products, such as household appliances and electronic
equipment and one company, Mitsushita (which sells under the
name of Panasonic and Quasar) acknowledged that in 1991-1992
alone, they had sold more than 1 billion dollars worth of equipment
that used Fuzzy Logic. The concept is so popular there that the
English word has entered the Japanese language, though the Japanese
pronounce it more like "fudgy" than "fuzzy".

Zadeh's intellectual contributions are myriad. He's listed in
"Who's Who in the World" and since the late 1980s when
the Japanese became interested, the field has expanded exponentially.
So, too have the acknowledgments of these contributions with
honors such as the esteemed Honda Prize in Japan in 1991, medals,
honorary memberships, doctorates, fellowships, editorships, and
chairmanships from all over the world. Azerbaijan Republic is
among those who have honored him in 1993 when they bestowed an
honorary Professorship from the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy.

Characteristically, Zadeh is "down-to-earth", always
holding abstract scientific concepts up to a reality check of
their practical utility of whether they "do us any good."
Since the applications of Fuzzy Logic to real life situations
are infinite; it's extremely likely that we'll be hearing about
Zadeh for a long, long time to come.